Did the Nehru Gandhi family screw up these 60 years?

Did the Nehru Gandhi family really screw up these 60 years?

Election rhetoric usually has a short life-span and dies in the wake of a new government and a new set of challenges. But this time was different.

As usual the Congress had aligned itself completely with the Nehru-Gandhis. For the first time in living memory the top three campaigners of the party were all from the family. And so comprehensive was the Congress defeat that one is forced to ask this question. Has India’s family #1 really added value to the country or, as many on the street allege, has the family screwed the country? Have they been creators? Or destroyers? Or mindless preservers? Hence this enquiry.

First a small correction.

It is not quite sixty years; the Congress has been in power for about 48 years.  Apart from the six years of Vajpayee there was a string of others who have presided over the government for short periods beginning with Desai and Charan Singh in the seventies, VP Singh in 1989 and Deve Gowda, Chandrashekhar and IK Gujral in the nineties.

Now to the issue at hand. We will consider all of them and hopefully reach a conclusion.

Nehru

One of the myths of modern India is that the British integrated the country into one. That may have been true in a simple political sense but countries can hardly be defined by a common set of borders alone.

Knowing that sooner rather than later they would leave the country, the British saw integration as little more than convenience. And focused on aspects like developing a bureaucracy which would help revenue maximization and building a road and rail network that would further commerce. In any case, creating a national ethos could hardly have been an objective of a government which had divided and ruled India for over two centuries.

What exactly did Nehru inherit from the British?

First, a reasonably stable, even if grossly inadequate legal system. This system, along with inputs from a few other countries was eventually codified into the Indian constitution.

Second, a political map that would be too chaotic even to explain. Only about half the country was directly governed. The rest was a club of over 500 closely or loosely supervised, happy, unhappy and sometimes resentful princely states tied to the British with their unique treaties of allegiance. Local administration in almost all the states was the responsibility of the prince or the king.

Third, a civil service already designed for less than half the country halved further by its people choosing to return to Britain or relocate to Pakistan. In 1947, India was being run by only 500 civil servants. There were obviously huge gaps in governance. The government just did not have the network to even reach out to its people. Which also explains the frequency of famines were in British India and the first couple of decades after independence.

Fourth, a literacy level of barely 18% resulting in as many illiterate people in India as the combined populations of the USA, UK, Germany and France. This was a real cause of shame for the British who had ruled India for almost two centuries. In Britain literacy by that time was over 90%.

And fifth, a highly segregated society. Inter-religion marriages were taboo, inter-caste marriages were unheard-of and apart from those in defense and senior bureaucracy, there were hardly any jobs that would require mobility within the country. Most people ended up spending their entire lives within a radius of a few miles of where were born.

Nehru’s first challenge was to create a concept of India that would survive without the glue of the freedom struggle. The partition riots, Gandhiji’s murder in 1948 and Patel’s death in 1950 made things worse.

As the original renaissance man, besides being a distinguished lawyer, Nehru was well read and extensively travelled. He was also a historian and a writer of repute. The concept closest to his heart was that of a democratic, egalitarian, liberal and secular India, a complete anti-dote to the reality of a deeply divided, segregated and segmented India. Unsurprisingly, Nehru’s India chose the gentler philosophic ‘sare jahan se acha’  than the aggressive ‘vande mataram.’

Analogies are often imperfect and I offer this with circumspection. Pakistan started its independent journey with us but despite the glue of religion ended up losing its way.  The USSR, a cobbling together of several smaller nationalities in 1922 eventually disintegrated in 1991. On the other hand India has grown from strength to strength. There can be little doubt that Nehru’s model of promoting tolerance and celebrating diversity has worked.

What about the criticism that Nehru as the original architect of socialism and the infamous ‘planned’ economy?

After two wars the world had been divided into the haves comprising the USA, UK and the others. Being a part of the USA/UK club perceived at that time to be the imperialist exploiters was an intellectual impossibility for a country which had for long been a British colony and was sworn to Gandhian values.

On the other hand the USSR, with its model of planned growth seemed exciting for countries like India which wanted a short-cut to prosperity. Even though socialism was still work-in-progress in the USSR, it had certainly become the flavor of the day globally. Secondly, while the western world viewed India as a market to export to, the USSR was willing to share, collaborate and transfer technology.  Under the circumstances, it would have been unthinkable for Nehru not to have veered in favor of the Soviet Union. Setting up the Planning Commission and investing in the ‘temples of modern India’ was but an obvious next step.

So far so good. But the country was to pay a high price for the areas he overlooked. The first among them was agriculture. Though it contributed over 75% of our GDP, it received the least attention. In years to come this would reach crisis proportions.

The second wash his failure to engage the private sector. Like others who subscribe to socialist values, Nehru also believed that the output of individuals was not limitless but confined to the number of hours they worked.

The third was his prioritization of higher over basic education. In China the literacy level shot up from 20% to over 50% during the fifties. At the same time, in India it rose from 20% to 30%. This was a pity as subsequent trends have shown that prosperity follows education.

The fourth was defense preparedness. Winning independence without bloodshed had probably created a feeling that investing on defense is a waste for a developing country. It was a big mistake which not only humiliated us but also emboldened Pakistan to fight a needless war in 1965. Nehru was just not able to understand that someone who had sat across the table as a friend at various for platforms, including NAM would actually use force against India.

The China conflict was Nehru’s final undoing. For all practical purposes his meaningful rule ended in 1962 though he lived for another two highly forgettable and personally humiliating years.

Indira Gandhi

Nothing describes the personality of Indira Gandhi better than a private incident which became horribly ugly and public.

After the death of Sanjay Gandhi, when they fell apart, Indira Gandhi had Maneka’s belongings actually thrown out on the road. Sanjay’s son Varun was less than 3 years old.  Those were easier times for nasty mothers-in-laws; today Indira Gandhi could even have been jailed. That Maneka Gandhi was no angel makes the story more interesting but does not mitigate in any way Indira Gandhi’s shocking behavior.

That was quintessential Indira Gandhi. Devious, mean, petty, scheming.  Unfortunately for the country she carried these traits into her official dealings as well, whether with the party or the opposition, Americans or the Akalis, friends or foes. Her choice of close personal advisors is revealing. One can understand son Sanjay but people like Dhawan, Dhirendra Brahmachari and Zail Singh? If ever a case is needed to be built against dynastic politics, one needs not look beyond Indira Gandhi.

The 1962 war had been a humiliation and the fact that in 1965, a much smaller Pakistan was able to hold out to us was hardly reassuring. Soon after Indira Gandhi was sworn-in in 1966, India faced one of the worst droughts in history. The rupee, artificially propped up had to be devalued by over a third. And the countries which would usually help us with doles were no longer keen to do that the war with Pakistan in 1965. Much of the glow around India being the democratic world’s beacon of success was over.

Quite possibly it was this embarrassment that forced her to pull the country’s shutters down. In a strategic sense she veered more and more into the Russia camp and at one stage we were no different from Russia’s several client states in Eastern Europe. There was safety in being in the Russian camp, locked, as it were, from within and celebrating poverty as if it was a divine gift.

When a year and a few months into her first term she broke the party to create Congress (I) she realized that there  was virtually no power that could block a Prime Minister with a majority in Parliament and a connect with the people. This had a profound impact on her. Thereafter her decision-making had little to do with ideology or strategy. Each time she extended the boundaries of control she found no resistance. This was to become an essential feature of the DNA of the Congress in the years to come.

Nehru had created the license Raj at least with honest intent. That it ultimately became the biggest impediment to growth by sucking initiative and ambition out of the system was, in all likelihood, entirely unforeseen in a period when socialism was accepted as a panacea for all. Indira Gandhi converted it into a system of rewards and punishment for personal loyalty. The government became a wielder of power to promote or destroy through vengeance.

Severe import restrictions, capacity licensing and absurdly high taxes with highest slab being beyond 97% in 1974 led to asset stripping by promoters who saw merit in stashing wealth generated by buying licenses, exploiting loopholes and indulging in other corrupt practices into Swiss banks. In fact to Indira Gandhi must go the credit for be creating  the very concept of ‘black money’.

There was another more sinister sub-plot. By virtually taking back almost all the tax-payers earnings and returning the favors through doles and subsidies, she had the country addicted to subsidy. And where there is subsidy, there are votes. This was to become a part of the DNA of the Congress in the years to come.

She was lucky that the bitterness between West and East Pakistan gave her the opportunity to become the hero of the moment after the liberation of Bangladesh. It was to become the sole high point of a vacuous reign of almost two decades and enabled her win over 350 seats in elections held in the same year.

The country’s downward spiral was swift and unforgivable. When she had taken over from her father India’s GDP was more than China’s. By 1984, China’s GDP was 20% higher. And we had slipped on every possible parameter.

Indira Gandhi reserved her worst for intrigues within the country. Tragically, in hindsight as one such intrigue caused by little more than instinctive mistrust of a set of her own countrymen and women escalated into thousands of deaths including hers, and the country being pushed back by over a decade.

Rajiv Gandhi

After 18 years of his mother’s efforts to block out the world, Rajiv did just the opposite. He wanted India and Indians to participate and be counted globally.

Long before the term ‘demographic dividend’ had been created Rajiv understood that our population may be our problem but our people are our asset. This may sound a cliché today but in the mid eighties it was a radical new thought. In his words “India is an old country, but a young nation; and like the young everywhere, we are impatient. I am young and I too have a dream. I dream of an India, strong, independent, self-reliant and in the forefront of the front ranks of the nations of the world in the service of mankind.”

If vision is described as what can be, Rajiv was a visionary. Being a quintessential outsider in Indian politics was both his strength and his weakness. Strength because it enabled him to dream and weakness because his lack of experience made implementation that much tougher.

At a time when even mid-sized corporations had just about issued calculators to their staff and procured electric typewriters for the MD,  Rajiv evangelized the computer. This was an extraordinary leap of faith when most people, the writer included felt that computers were too expensive, too complex to use and basically inappropriate for Indians. Even the most radical among us would smirk at him and his so-called ‘computer brigade’. Today Indians are at the forefront of the IT revolution

That was not all. He realized the importance of telecom in a country where we had all grown to assume that even a ‘lightning’ call may take hours to connect. He invited Sam Pitroda to help herald a telecom revolution. Unsurprisingly, after IT, the telecom revolution is India’s biggest success story.

On critical matters where coordinated efforts by states, center and multilateral agencies needed to work together, he set up ‘missions’ like the Drinking Water Mission, Watershed Management Mission and so on. In an effort to popularize India he organized Festivals of India in several countries. He was the first to use mass media to create a sense of nationhood with the ‘mile sur mera tumhara series and several other similar initiatives like campaigns to promote global tourism to India.

Having said that, on the two critical issues of the day, he could not make any difference.

By the time  he took over, with countless killings, Operation Bluestar and the 1984 Sikh pogrom in Delhi, the Khalistan movement had reached an impossible dead-end; Nothing seemed to be working. To his credit despite a resentment caused by his perceived inaction during the 1984 pogrom, most Sikhs found him to be more approachable, transparent and sincere than his mother who had been reviled. He and his advisors managed to get Sant Longowal to sign a hastily drawn peace accord. Most of it would was un implementable. Sant Longowal’s assassination saved Rajiv the blushes.

On the Srilankan Tamil issue his performance was even more immature. By first sending in the Indian Peace Keeping Force and then withdrawing it, he managed the impossible feat of being hated by Tamils and Sinhalese. It was naivety of a high order though most people also lay the blame for it on babus who misled him. He had been in office for barely a year and a few months and probably did not understand the complexity of the issue involved.

Rajiv lasted a term and was done in by the Bofors issue and VP Singh. In hindsight his contributions were of much more value than the goings-on in Bofors and whether or not he made money.

Sonia and Rahul Gandhi

With Sonia taking over, there was a significant change in the dynamics. Instead of being led by center-forwards, the team was now led by a non-playing captain. This was a unique situation globally and political scientists were eager to see how it would work. After all politics is almost entirely about personal charisma and people’s trust and could either of them be furthered by back-seat driving?

Success is tougher to understand than defeat. When the Congress was returned to power in 2009 with an even stronger mandate it was as if the dynasty had been vindicated. And back-seat driving became a rule rather than an exception. And with three power centers it was a matter of time before the situation would implode. From confusion down the ranks to corruption to non-accountability, whatever could go wrong did go wrong. Recent events and the Congress’s humiliation are fresh and repeating them here would be a waste of space.

Conclusion

It is impossible to argue in favor of dynastic politics. That’s like stating the obvious. After all, we would all be happier with a system in which performance, not lineage should determine success. Having said that, dynasty works in every area whether in business, entertainment and even sport. Maybe this is the best state of balance. For the moment it appears that people are wiser. But with a maturing electorate, we now know that if dynasty provides recognition, it can also prove to be a baggage.

So has the family really screwed the country?

Nehru did not. In fact Nehru and the Congress provided stability in the early years without which we may have not have existed as a country as we do today. Nehru made many mistakes but what he delivered at a fragile time was far more critical than the mistakes he made.

Indira Gandhi did. She took the country back by over two decades. Ideally had she preferred to stay out of politics, it is likely that India would have been happier.

Rajiv did not. It was a pity we lost Rajiv when we did. He was likely to have won the elections in 1992. Had he returned to power, the country would have gained.

And Sonia did.  She should rather have become the mentor of the party  and allowed it to choose its own leader. The party is paying for her mistakes now; the country paid earlier.

But more than what they did right or wrong, the problem was with what the family did not allow to happen. Apart from a very brief period under Rajiv and later Rao the effort has always been to preserve and avoid changes. Dynasties find it impossible to begin afresh on a clean slate even once the past has become a baggage as had happened earlier this year.

And their insecurity makes it  impossible for them to grow talent. A look at the Congress high table today will confirm that.

Who should we vote vote for? Candidate or party?

When we first elected them did we know that Rahul Gandhi would hardly ever attend Parliament, Sidhu would find a lucrative alternative career in media and Somnath Bharti would use vigilante machismo to cover up a questionable past?

 

I quote these examples not to denigrate the concerned individuals but only to point out that for first-tmers, no matter what their earlier track record, it is tough to assess how effective they would be as legislators once  elected. This is important as in a month or so, we will all be voting in an election in which well over 50% candidates will be first-timers.

 

Some notions become truisms without ever having faced adequate scrutiny. That all our ills will dissipate once we start sending only the best into parliament and state legislatures is one such. A few decades ago, we used to blame our ills on a parliament in which over 40% MPs were undergraduates. While that percentage has shrunk, the performance of parliament has only become worse.

 

There is no denying that long-term advantages of sending good people are obvious and significant.

 

Better legislators mean more responsible and responsive law-making, a higher degree of accountability and a better example set for the public. In addition good legislators will hopefully exert significant influence on shaping the core philosophy of their parties and also create pressure on them to give tickets to better and better candidates in the future.

 

Does it therefore follow that we should give up party allegiances and focus on electing better individuals? This is where the issue becomes more complex.

 

First, a basic issue.

 

What do we expect from our legislators? What makes for a good legislator? Or bad? How do some legislators manage to get elected time after time? Does that make them ideal? No easy answers. 

 

It is easier to identify a bad legislator rather than outline what a good legislator should be like. One who does not contribute to the process of law making, is not available to engage, has no interest in his constituency or has questionable integrity is obviously no good. But in real life choices are never so easy.

 

What about a legislator whose reputation is spotless but is ineffective. Or another who refuses to attend parliament but is effective? Or yet another who toils for his constituency but lacks the networking skills needed to get things done? Or one who lacks the clout within his party to influence its strategy? Or one who has the skills to get things done but has questionable integrity? 

 

Second, how much do we actually know about our candidates?

 

The three examples of Rahul, Sidhu and Bharti are instructive. No one expected Rahul  and Sidhu to play truant and Bharti to be of questionable integrity. The truth is we know only as much about our candidates as they choose to tell us.

 

Uness he or she is an incumbent or otherwise in the public eye as a distinguished lawyer, sportsperson or actor, there is never enough data available to evaluate a first-time candidate even if we try hard. In any case, does a great track record in, say cricket, or films or even social service actually qualify you to be an effective legislator?

 

And the situation is far worse for candidates who are parachuted into constituencies just prior to the election? You have virtually nothing to go by. 

 

Third, would your candidate, if elected, have any say in his party? Or will his contribution be limited to getting the gutters cleaned before every monsoon?

 

With disappearance of inner party democracy a few decades ago, there is a natural ceiling to what your representative can possibly achieve. None of the parties, not even AAP which is the youngest of them all has any pretence of being run by its members. All strategic decisions are taken by one or a handful of people at the very top.

 

In such an environment what can a legislator of your choice really achieve except perhaps get a couple of roads repaired or a hospital passed? And there is a good chance that would have happened even without that MP.

 

As we enter a more 'competitive' phase in our political life with more than two options in a majority of the states, suddenly ideology, which had all but vanished since the nineties, is making a come back into our political landscape. With the entry of AAP as a super-socialist party of the sixties, suddenly we have the classic extreme left, extreme right and middle of the road streams. 

 

For the next couple of elections but certainly for 2014, wisdom lies in establishing the path our country will and should take going forward. The time has come for us to use our vote to give a strategic signal through our vote. What is the India we want to create and leave behind. And that can best be done by voting in a party of choice.

 

The upside of a saintly legislator is limited but the downside of opting for an ideology we do not agree with may be  terrifying.

Dear Arvind Kejriwal 

I had planned to review your performance after a month of your taking over power in Delhi but the speed at which your plot is unraveling suggests I do it sooner. 

You have a somewhat self-serving understanding of the term achievement.  

Removal of beacons, no matter how welcome is not any more an achievement than me giving up my car in favor of the metro. Subsidizing water and electricity are simple actions of distributing tax-payer money to your vote-bank. They will become achievements only if you can manage to grow the economy of the state and raise additional revenues that make such hand-outs affordable.                       

Which leaves you with three ‘achievements’. Setting up an anti-corruption helpline to trap bribe-takers,  converting 6 buses into night shelters and ordering a CAG audit into the discoms. I leave it to you to assess for yourself whether these are adequate for a government promising paradise.  

On the negative side, you have excluded auto rickshaws from the purview of the Delhi Police and decided to waive off penalties for your supporters who had stopped paying their electricity bills. This is unacceptable but citizens of Delhi have no option but to grin and bear it. 

Disappointingly, for all your talk of ‘fixed’ electricity meters before the elections, you have still not ordered a simple audit of meters for which no CAG approval is necessary. You obviously fear that results of such an audit may embarrass you. Not fair. 

Coming to the main point.

Arvind Kejriwal, is eradicating corruption still your priority #1? Or have you decided it is more convenient to keep the pot boiling? Just as godmen need discontent to sell nirvana, does AAP need corruption to stay in business?                                             

I say that because in the last 25-odd days you have not taken a single step that would suggest a serious attempt to tackle this menace. 

Corruption is neither new nor specific only to India. At some stage all countries have felt its scourge. But no country ever managed to control it only by additional policing as you are attempting to do. Just like traffic management requires not just policemen but also an understanding of traffic flows, traffic signals, flyovers and so on,  eradicating corruption requires determination to strike at its roots. 

But to do that you and your ministers will have to return to your office and put in real hard and boring work. Are you prepared to do that? If so, please read on. 

Here are my suggestions to eradicate corruption. To make it simpler for you after each narration, I have highlighted your action points. You could call them the Sexy Six. 

A.      Eliminate discretion. 

Whether it is Adarsh, 2G, CWG, Coalgate, the root cause of most corruption is the discretionary power vesting with politicians and bureaucracy in our system. If you could eliminate discretion, you could eradicate corruption. 

Singapore is a good country to learn from. There is virtually no discretion except at senior levels. Government officials understand their job is to execute. Exceptions are not accepted; as a result, even America has to beg for its citizens to be treated with compassion.  

In India, as a city state, Delhi is best placed to implement this. Do this and you would have created history. 

Action point:  

Task your ministers to list 'discretionary powers' enjoyed in decision-making by various levels in the government all the way down to the last mile. This will not be easy as bureaucrats would hate to give up their power. Not all politicians can do it but if anyone can, you can. Show the resolve you show in street and then, step by step, dismantle the current superstructure.  

B.      Separate decision making from oversight responsibilities 

Nothing creates more opacity than a system in which a file goes through several levels, all of which have the power to block and not approve. As a result, each level not only delays but also leverages power to seek speed-money.  

Action Point: 

Collapse consideration and implementation to not more than three levels.  Push decision-making down to senior bureaucrats and enable ministers to perform the role of keeping an oversight rather than be compromised by being decision makers. Once they are decision makers they develop a vested interest in opacity. 

I would hesitate suggesting this to all states but would be happy to see it implemented in Delhi where at least for the moment we can assume ministers are honest. 

C.      Destroy monopoly 

If instead of destroying discoms as you are currently engaged in doing, you were to work towards providing last-mile competition to the end customer, many of the issues would naturally get taken care of.  

Build last-mile competition in every service including water and power supply and even in public services like schools and hospitals. Dove-tail this with your idea of Swaraj and you may have a winner. Every mohalla committee must have options of service providers to them. 

Action Point: 

Task your ministers to do an ABCD analysis of all services provided by your government beginning with A where there already is last-mile competition like telecom, B being partial monopolies like Electricity where despite competition the customer does not have a choice and C being others.  

Set a target of 2 years to dismantle all monopolies and bring in competition at the customer-end.  

D.      Reduce government 

Government is temperamentally not wired to provide service. By taking on more service the government adds to cost and sows seeds of eventual dissatisfaction among citizens.   

If issuance of passports can be outsourced, why not registration of vehicles, grant of driving licenses, property registration courts etc. These are currently major pain points for the aam aadmi. A visit to the RPO at Saket and property registration office at INA may help. You do not need to go at night.  

Action Points: 

Task your ministers to come to you with a list of public pain points pertaining to their departments. If necessary, hire consultants to suggest outsourcing strategies. Attempt to put at least one department under each minster into a pilot within 12 months.   

E.       Mandate use of e-governance in all dealings with the public 

Nothing eradicates corruption as comprehensively as e-governance. And possibilities are endless. 

Let’s take the example of electricity bills. Mandate that in a year, each consumer will get his daily electricity and water consumption on his mobile. Through this data he can check and analyze his usage and even get a good idea if his meters are ‘fixed’. Simple. Effective. 

Action Point 

Hire a Nilekani-type as an e-governance evangelist and force all departments to be fully e-governed for public dealings within 2 years. That is the kind of challenge we expect a new young government to accept and deliver. 

F.       Change your working style  

Nothing is more important than implementation.
 
Implementation is typically an area of weakness for us in India.  To make all these things happen you will of course need extraordinary passion but also a very tight control over implementation. 

Action Point 

Earmark one day a week for implementation review. This is the day you do not meet people or the press and do not have meetings other than for implementation review. 

Initially your ministers and their bureaucrats may find it oppressive but over a few weeks when they see that through these meetings they can actually cut through the red tape, they will start enjoying it. 

Most of these are medium to long-term strategies. I would suggest that you announce them along with  the rough time-frames so that citizens at large understand the journey they are involved in. This will also help buy you time so that critics like me do not pounce on you for results every week, week after week. 

Wishing you the best.

Preet K S Bedi

Letter to Preet Bharara

Dear Preet Bharara,

Anyone can see that you are one of those stuck-up persons of Indian origin who neither speaks nor understands any of our languages, sees no Bollywood films, finds baseball more interesting than cricket, dislikes Indian weddings and never visits India even to pay a ritual obeisance.

It is impossible to believe that you born in Ferozepur, breathed the air we breathe, drank the water we drink and spoke the language we speak at least for a few years migrating to the USA. If it wasn't for your name, it would be difficult to believe that there was anything Indian about you at all.

We hate your good looks, your success and in-your-face un-Indianness. But most of all we hate the fact that you still sport an Indian name. In fact, you had a better chance of getting away with a name like Peter Bleach. Remember how easily we let him go? You could, of course argue that the charges against him were simple smuggling of lethal weapons whereas you are charged of actually waging war against India.  

Truth be told it was for this reason that we did our best to pass you off as a Khalistani carrying the baggage of the Sikh pogrom but as more and more people googled, this lie became difficult to sustain. Usually we don’t allow facts to come in the way of our prejudices but this time we somehow capitulated.

In a nutshell we hate you. At least as much as we think you hate us. We think you wish to destroy everything we have always stood for. Our culture, our values, our petulance and our prejudices.

Having said all that, destiny has forced us to deal with each other. It seems you will not easily relent. Neither will we; certainly not before the next scandal hits the ceiling by early next week. And so let me make one last ditch effort to save our two democracies from mutual destruction.

As you may know we are an ancient culture. There is much that we have thrown away but there is a lot we have retained too. Am listing some of the rich traditions we continue to cherish which you will do well to consider.

1.     Naukars, more recently referred to as domestic help, are to listen, obey and perform. Not to talk back or complain. That a naukar could report a sahib to the police even if provoked by someone, cannot be tolerated.  

In our personal value systems cutting across religions and faiths, Sangeeta’s behavior was unacceptable. Much of the angst against her arises out of this simple insight. By daring Devyani, she dared one of us and that is unacceptable. The naukar must realize his or her place.

2.     Entering into two contracts is no crime in our country. For us it is easy to understand that what we write for ‘official purposes’ can be different from the truth.

Whether it is adding names in the ration-card or under-declaring our age we understand perfectly that truth can have different dimensions. No less than a recent Army Chief had to content with two dates of birth and no one in India found it odd.

3.     Paying Devyani just a fraction of the minimum wage is no crime. Many among us don’t manage to make a lac a month till we are in our forties or fifties and sometimes not even then.

To think that anyone among us would be foolish enough to pay a lac a month even including notional costs for boarding/lodging to a servant is absurd.

No matter how much the government may increase  overseas allowances etc, no Indian worth his or her salt will actually pay a lac a month to his/her domestic help. Just think of it as a culture thing.

4.     There are no ‘working hours’ for domestic help living on the premises. If she is at home and available, she is assumed to be available for work. This  does not, by the way, mean that the employees are forced to work round-the-clock. In most cases domestic help work up to 10 to 12 hours with a couple of hours of rest thrown in.

5.     Holidays and weekly-offs are an exception and not the rule though most employers do give a few hours off on Sundays to go to the church, temple or gurudwara. They do usually get a paid vacation for a month or so.

Unsurprisingly, most of us believe it was Sangeeta Richard who cast the first stone and deserves to be punished. And that pretty Devyani should be be honored for having given us a chance to fight for our dignity.

You, Preet Bharara, in a spirit of vendetta are throwing a rule book at us. Rules to us in India? Maybe you should visit us for a few days.

And go back to live in serendipity just as we do.

Regards

Preet K S Bedi

How many Rahuls are there anyway?

How many Rahuls in all?

This question has bothered many. I am no exception.

As those who know me will confirm, I never expound on issues without studying them in more than adequate detail. I have been doing my homework for several months and am now ready to share my findings with the world at large.

The first Rahul.

Son of Rajiv and Sonia, grandson of Indira Gandhi, great grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru,  great great grandson of Motilal Nehru, brother of Priyanka and brother-in-law of Robert.  We are all familiar with him.

He is pretty much like you and me; likes the good things of life.  Good bungalow, a nice car and the occasional overseas holiday. Charms you with his dimples and the kind of guy women would love. A great boy-friend, husband, son, son-in-law all rolled into one; you can pick and choose your preference.

He is no pushover intellectually either. Has learnt a lot through the journey of life. He knows, for instance, that blood is  thinner than water unless it is the Nehru Gandhi blood, that power is poison except when wielded by the Nehru-Gandhi family and that poverty and pain are nothing but a state of mind.  And that the thin line between nonsense and sense runs through the axis MMand S.

The second Rahul is rarely seen.

The grapevine suggests he is related to Kumbhkaran but there is as yet no proof. He disappears pretty much randomly for long stretches of time and suddenly resurfaces as if nothing has happened in the interim. Some have fancy and sometimes nasty explanations of why and how he vanishes but as an insider I know it is nothing but the Kumbhakaran-effect.

The third Rahul is a dark brooding bearded apparition in white often sighted in villages of West UP.

This Rahul believes in the ancient concept of atonement. And the more the process lacerates, the higher its value. The hisab-kitab is simple. For every six months spent in luxury, at least one night must be spent outdoors in a village. And so, twice a year he drives out to Noida or Greater Noida to spend a night in camp-like conditions to expiate his guilt.

The fourth is the insightful Rahul.  

There are those who foolishly believe that milk should not be allowed to spill. This old-fashioned thinking assumes physicality of incidents rather than their philosophic dimension not visible to all.

And there are those like Rahul the fourth who can see beyond .They will wait for days, weeks and even months for milk to spill only to be able to study the patterns it makes. The uncharitable complain that such people allow crises to first develop, fester and explode but then the uncharitable are known to whine.

The fifth Rahul is the quintessential Angry Young Man.   

Angry with his party, his friends, his advisors, the weather, the city, the country, this world, whatever. He is plain angry. This Rahul stopped smiling years ago, his sleeves are rolled and his weapons are loaded. Just that he does not know whom to attack. Understandably, his friends are more scared of him than his enemies.

And the last Rahul?

Iconoclast, heretic, impatient, change agent, catalyst, youthful, dynamic, forceful, hero, Superman. Rumor is that he lives Rahul Gandhi’s mind.